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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thistles" data-source="post: 59393" data-attributes="member: 3949">Please don't feel picked on. I think the issues here are mostly misunderstandings and people choosing not to listen to one another. Let's untangle this.Your first post had a sense of curiosity and teachability, as when you said:  You are absolutely correct to say that assumptions are not facts. My opinion is that you do not have enough data to say that the saline is either good or bad based only on your experiences. If you want a real answer you need to control for all the variables I mentioned earlier. Here are a few more confusing factors. First, most tarantula keepers don't use false bottoms. Due to their inclination to burrow, any attempt at a false bottom would soon be thwarted by little tarantulas reaching the water and gravel underneath. I suspect most of the people replying here are having trouble picturing your set up.Secondly, "moisture dependent" has a specific connotation in tarantula keeping. All organisms are dependent on water to a certain extent. The difference here is that when we refer to a tarantula as being "moisture dependent" we mean that particular species needs damp substrate. That is not the case for most tarantulas, including Grammostola rosea.Spiderlings all need some moisture in their substrate due to their undeveloped cuticle. As they age and their cuticle develops, most tarantulas become tolerant to a low humidity environment whether it is natural for them or not. The advantage to keeping them dry is the inhibition of pest organisms cohabiting with the tarantula. Dry substrate won't grow mold or harbor mites. This makes any further treatment to limit the growth of these organisms unnecessary.Microwaving the substrate is not only unnecessary and futile, but might also be harmful. Tarantulas naturally live in burrows that remain relatively undisturbed for their entire lives. Disrupting their burrow every few months is a huge upheaval for the animal. Spiderlings recover from this pretty quickly, but adult female fossorial tarantulas seem to have great difficulty in reestablishing their burrows, with some refusing to burrow and ultimately desiccating. As I said before, as soon as you feed the tarantula you have reintroduced mites to the enclosure. The trick is to learn how to manage this without uprooting the tarantula. Dry substrate does this. It is understandable that you might turn to saline to inhibit pests, but the preponderance of evidence here suggests that it is unnecessary. Some research here seems to indicate that it might be harmful, so I think what you are hearing from other members is that it isn't worth risking.Okay, there are a few assumptions in here that I can leave alone, like how you know what kind of mite you were dealing with, but let me reiterate that mites and tarantulas are very close relatives and any sort of difference in response to environmental factors is likely to be a matter of scale. Microwaving your materials initially is not necessary, but it also won't hurt anything. Carry on if it makes you feel better. I'll also reiterate that the salt does not evaporate. Only the pure water does. Any salt that you added will remain in the soil.After this was that monster post that was all one paragraph and a bit of a bear to read. I think I adequately answered that in my monster post, but let's be careful not to take offense. At first you were curious, but now you have appeared to have doubled down and are insisting that what you are doing isn't hurting your tarantulas. It might not be. I don't think you know enough to make a definitive statement one way or the other, though.With me so far? Now on to the new stuff.No one is denying that tarantulas (and everything) need some salts in their bodies. What we question is the necessity, or even wisdom, of including saline in their environment versus just relying on their prey to supply the necessary salts. It clearly is NOT a necessity based on the millions of pet tarantulas that are thriving in captivity without it. I think a better question would be, "is it detrimental?" Don't confuse features of a huge area with being the tarantula's immediate environment. These animals live in perhaps a square meter of territory for their entire lives. I have never been to the Atacama and unfortunately data is rather lacking, but none of the pictures of wild G. rosea that I have seen have been in salt flats. Take another biome for example: you can say that manatees live in the Everglades. That does not mean that manatees live in every part of the Everglades, for example, on land. Does that make sense? The spiders don't live in geysers. We also have yet to define what is meant by "salt." What you are using is some form of mineral salt. I don't know what kind. What most people here are thinking of is sodium chloride. I don't know what kind of salt is present in the Atacama in general, much less in the vicinity of tarantula burrows in particular. Whether you call it an experiment or not, it is one. Any sort of deviation from established methods of husbandry is experimental. I don't say that as a criticism, but don't think that a label has any effect on reality. You also cannot definitively state that the salt you are using is "harmless." A better way to phrase that would be, "nonlethal at the current dose." I'm sure enough of it (or enough of anything!) could turn deadly. Just be careful about assumptions.We aren't trying to pick on you, but what we see is someone keeping tarantulas unconventionally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) who is not accounting for all factors when making sweeping claims. We're concerned about your tarantulas as well as the tarantulas of any new hobbyist who happens to see this and think, "hey, not a bad idea!" It might not be, but in my opinion it isn't worth the risk. Do what you like, but please be a little more circumspect. I think I got it all, but there was a lot. Again, my intention isn't to offend and I don't think any of the others are trying to hurt your feelings. We're all just misunderstanding one another and getting more entrenched and defensive.</blockquote>

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